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I always find it difficult to pick Democrats or Republicans as “the correct party” since both camp on polarizing issues that force voters to cherry pick their beliefs. Ultimately, I have to prioritize which issue concerns me most and choose that party. This means I get a lot of other baggage – baggage that is important to other people (or companies, since they increasingly fund the parties), but not important to me. In fact, I may end up voting against my beliefs if one issue supersedes other issues. The problem, however, is that the polarization of the two parties becomes a choice between two extremes. If only there was a center party.
Left
Center
Right
Wall Street is to blame for the financial crisis. Government must halt thieving bankers. Both Wall Street and Government played a role. Shared blame, reform needed. Neither can point the . . . → Read More: Dogmas of the left and right in America
Pants: With pants, there are no surprises. I fold them in half, find the seam, flop them over my arm, and I’m done. Perhaps I flop them over again. One flop if the pants will be placed upon a hanger, two flops if placed in a drawer. Furthermore, pants reduce the size of the laundry pile by a significant percentage over shirts or underwear. Pants folding grants a sense of progress in the journey through the laundry pile. Lastly, pants also provide an excellent base for other clothes to be piled on top. Pants are the cornerstone of laundry folding. Towels: I would gladly four loads of towels over one load of mixed articles of clothing. Again, the size of towels makes them natural first draft choices for folding, since the pile will shrivel as each towel departs. Second, towels are highly stackable. They are the closest thing to . . . → Read More: Order of preference for folding laundry
…you’d get Lady Gaga at the 2012 Grammys.
 +  =
With the birth of his daughter, Jay-Z needs to update his list of 99 problems. His new list doesn’t include his old problems of “Foes that wanna make sure my casket’s closed” and getting pulled over for “doin’ fifty-five in the fifty-four.” His list now includes new kinds of problems, such as:
Diaper blowouts Shirt with spitup on it Snot Two hours of sleep Discussions about the merits of Pampers versus Huggies Forgetting to shower Looks like a rash, but could be eczema, or worse Opening bottles that have curdled into cheese Doctor says baby in lower/higher percentile for weight Baby putting everything in mouth Baby hasn’t pooped in five days Ear infections Cradle cap Unconsolable wailing An absence of reason Playing hide and seek for hours Wearing princess tiara at tea parties Watching Cinderella repeatedly Applying sunscreen to baby on 60 degree . . . → Read More: Jay-Z’s new list of 99 problems
The SOPA bill quickly became the favorite whipping boy of nearly all netizens, in perhaps the rarest moment of solidarity between left and right experienced in recent years. The collective ire found a common scapegoat in the form of censorship of the internet.
What this SOPA Blackout has also shown is the power of Google, Reddit, and Wikipedia in broadcasting issues and fighting heavily lobbied legislation. Moreover, sites like Google and Wikipedia have proven that they can act as change agents on behalf of people – a power seemingly divested from Congressmen and Senators over the years. Since this morning, three Senators have already leapt from the mast of the SOAP ship as the conflagration of the bill continues in the press.
Does the Internet now represent voters in a more effective way than actual elected leaders? Rather than write a letter or call a representative, . . . → Read More: The Internet Rises Up: Don’t Mess With Lolcats
 For anyone interested in the financial meltdown of 2008, which spawned both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements, may I suggest reading Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America by Matt Taibbi. The two parties with their separate protests should realize that their anger needs to be directed at both government and banks, not just one or the other. This is a story of how greed spirals into disaster. Decisions are made behind closed doors that the average person cannot change but only suffer the outcome. The characters assigned such great responsibility in New York and D.C. often do not have the “greater good” in their vocabulary.
Griftopia is a great read, with perhaps a bit too much ad . . . → Read More: Short-term profits over people, infrastructure for sale: Reading Griftopia by Matt Taibbi
Is everyone an engineer now? Or a “senior” account/software/systems/sales + manager/consultant/specialist/analyst? While the amount of available jobs shrinks, job titles continue to grow in word count. Gone are the days when a salesman was a salesman. Now it’s a critical accounts marketing manager who pitches products to customers. The title engineer comes in the most flavors, with many of these engineering roles requiring little or no math. A solid understanding of fractions and exponents (for calculating powers of 2) suffices as enough to be blessed with the title engineer. Could there be a industrial psychologist driving this, lengthening job titles under the aegis of a theory of empowerment?
Why not? For example, the following exchange may be heard soon in a school hallway near you:
“What do you do?”
“I’m a nuclear hydrological engineer.”
“Goodness. What do you do exactly?”
“Atom removal. I transfer matter using water.”
“Wow, what . . . → Read More: Living in the Age of Job Title Hyperbole
I know I am supposed to feel deep chagrin at the possibility of the SOPA bill (Stop Online Piracy Act) bill being peddled in Washington. If the worst-case-scenarios are true, I have to wonder about my own site being targeted for takedown, since I blog about TV shows and usually take screen shots of the DVDs that I watch on my computer. Would this be a kind of piracy, or would the studios only take offense if I bash the show? (Fortunately, I only blog about shows that I really enjoy, so it’s mostly fanboy musings.) 
I am an all-things-Google user. Given the Google motto of “Don’t be evil” and its Edison-like power of innovation, I would like to believe in this company as a protectorate of the internet-as-we-know-it. Given that Google opposes SOPA, the hair on . . . → Read More: If SOPA passes, can I still blog about TV shows?
The market seems to be forever blowing bubbles. The cheerleaders create prophecies of absurd price heights. Then the prophecies become self-fulfilling amid a collective hysteria of easy money. Later, those in the know, the cheerleaders who created the hysteria in the first place, dump their holdings just before everyone realizes that the value solely exists in the imagination.
At least the current gold bubble centers around a single commodity, perhaps making its certain crash less painful to a wider audience than the crashes heretofore: the dot-com, the subprime, and the oil spike(s).
Like the ghosts of bubbles past, a quick Google search will bring up articles touting gold going to $5000 an ounce listed on bubble-cheerleader sites like CNBC. More modest cheerleaders, more nerdy cheerleaders with glasses, suggest that an ounce will only reach $2400.
Whenever these . . . → Read More: Did the gold bubble just have its Dow 36000 moment?
I know that Wittgenstein said that I shouldn’t talk about subjects I’m not an expert on. “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” But I can’t help it on some topics (or most topics, since blogging is all about pontificating). So here goes:
Regulators who stick to their guns
In reading about the financial collapse of 2008, I came across a note about a meeting in 2004 when the Net Capital Rule was changed for the big five investment banks. This rule limited the amount of debt companies could accrue. Basically, the rule change lifted the limit and allowed those companies to run too hot and ultimately smother the whole economy.
From Wikipedia on the Net Capital Rule change: “Since 2008, many commentators on the financial crisis of 2007-2009 have identified the 2004 . . . → Read More: When regulators forget their purpose…
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